How does the rational, skeptic minded person and the religious theist react when they are presented with the same evidence for a mysterious event or a new previously unknown phenomenon? Some of you guys might say, Ah! Its a no brainer! But just to clear things up, I'm going to elaborate this a bit.

The rational thinker and the religious theist responds in quite the different way.

The difference between a rational thinker and the religious believer.

At first the rational thinker checks the evidence presented to him very carefully. He doesn’t depend upon vague, ambiguous or uncertain evidence and promptly disregards if its not credible enough even if supports his position. In other words, he doesn’t care which evidence he must let go. On the other hand, the religious theist quickly holds onto a few chuncks of evidence provided by the either a neutral or biased source and rigidly defends them. Seemingly irrationally seizes onto something which he deems as credible and won’t let go of it!

A rational person always searches for natural explanation in a simple and familiar process to identify the main causal factors behind a particular event, while a religious theist invokes complex, unnatural scenarios controlled by unreal, mystical powerful forces behind the scenes.

A rationalist proposes falsifiable ideas or hypothesis, only accepts those ideas if he can critically evaluate, test and confirm them. This is also known as the scientific method. In case of a theist, who cares less about the above mentioned method, deals with imaginary explanations that can never be critically evaluated, assessed or tested. These are best called unfalsifiable assumptions with no way to prove them validity.

A person who follows his rational mind, is willing to live with some fraction of unexplained or contradictory evidence. He focuses on certain unresolved subject one at a time. He wants the correct explanation, therefore is willing to live with unresolved explanations for long periods. Theists demand quick answers, even immediate explanations for every single apparent mysterious event. Insists on fitting everything into his explanation, often by explaining difficult items as further evidence of conspiracy. If in some case, the rationalist fails to give adequate explanation of a phenomenon that doesn't satisfy the theist, he is quick to invoke god or other mystic forces. This is also known as god of the gaps.

A Rational mind accepts the chance factor, the notion that human can make mistake and other human foibles, while the faith based mind intents scenarios when nothing ever goes wrong.

One very positive aspect of Rational people is that, they accept all demonstrated evidence and tries to keep everything in proportion while the blinded by faith will not face evidence that destroys his theory. He often seizes single pieces of evidence and blows them out of proportion only to confirm his bias.

Last but not the least, rationalits are open minded folks, quite flexible in their belief and are willing to change ideas if a new evidence emerges...on the other hand, theist sticks to preconceived notion regardless of new evidence and demonstrates a preconceived, rigid, victimlike nature.

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